


The power of love (and bullets)

by Ourliazo



Series: A Brief Foray [12]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst (a bit), Arcobaleno as magical girls, Gen, Humour, Magical girl! Reborn, Monster! Tsuna, Non-Graphic Violence, Reborn is not a good person, Reborn straight up kidnaps Tsuna, Teenage Arcobaleno (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Teenage Reborn, The First Thing You Learn Is That Reborn Is An Asshole, Warning: Reborn, magical girl au, touches on school bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ourliazo/pseuds/Ourliazo
Summary: Tsuna isn't surprised when he transforms into a monster. There are signs, if you know where to look, and Tsuna's been…tired lately. So Tsuna turns into a monster and waits for a magical girl to come and purify him.How unfortunate, that Reborn is the magical girl that finds him.
Relationships: Arcobaleno & Reborn (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Reborn & Sawada Tsunayoshi
Series: A Brief Foray [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/682346
Comments: 9
Kudos: 268





	The power of love (and bullets)

**Author's Note:**

> Magical girl AU, no flames, no Mafia, high school AU

The funny thing is, Tsuna held out because he didn't want to get hurt even more. Because this, being the person that he is, hurts. But becoming a monster, getting beaten half to death and then purified before being patted on the back and sent on his way into the arms of police sounds so much worse.

He could feel it, feel something inside him break, but he didn't let it out because he's a coward. Magical girls are scary. They can throw giant monsters through walls, erase memories, _kill people_.

So Tsuna holds himself together for as long as he can but it has to come out eventually.

Tsuna isn't surprised when he transforms into a monster. There are signs, if you know where to look, and Tsuna's been…tired. Tired for a long time, really. Tired of being neglected at home, of being bullied at school, of being dumb and weak and no good.

So he decides on a rainy Tuesday to walk to the big park, the run down oval where no one usually goes. Tsuna sits down in the middle of the muddy field and turns into a monster and waits for a magical girl to purify him, even though it won't change a thing, certainly won't make his life better.

Tsuna just hopes he can't feel being beaten up.

He wonders what monster he's going to be.

Hopefully not a weird one, not one that people will laugh at…

* * *

"Again?" Reborn sighs as his yellow pacifier starts glowing right in the middle of the library because subtlety is dead.

Colonnello slams his textbook closed and groans, flopping back in his seat as his blue pacifier reacts too. He pulls out his phone and checks the group chat.

Verde's in the middle of an experiment, Fon's teaching at the family dojo, Mammon straight up says no and Skull can't be trusted to do shit. Lal stays silent and Colonnello feels another burst of guilt for taking her position on accident.

"No one's available," Colonnello tells Reborn. "Can you go alone? Because I really need to study, you know how shit I am at chemistry."

"It's high school chemistry, it should be literally impossible to fail." Reborn starts half-heartedly packing up.

"Well excuse me, Mr. Smart Guy, go fuck yourself," Colonnello complains. He slumps down in his seat and kicks Reborn in the shin.

Reborn stabs a pencil into the table between Colonnello's thumb and forefinger.

The blond teenager snatches his hand back, wide eyed. "Woah, your psychopathy is coming out, put that back in before someone dies."

Reborn leans over the table and smirks. "Mind my stuff, this will be a quick one."

* * *

A massive being of fire roars, pillars of flame breaking open the ground and shooting up into the sky, unaffected by the heavy rain. The monster pitches forward and the fire branches out into four legs, a distinct head.

The muddy ground is being baked solid, the grass burning up, the rain evaporating before it can touch the monster. It roars again and takes a step towards the houses in the distance, the streets quickly filling with running people as they evacuate.

Reborn lands on the top of the baseball corner's fence, almost at eye-height with the massive monster. The Arcobaleno all have white button up shirts in different colours with a black vest over the top. Reborn drew the short straw and got a miniskirt and knee-high boots combo instead of pants but whatever, he looks good in it.

There's a big yellow bow at the back of his waist because yes, he is the yellow magical girl. However, it was established very early on that despite Fon being the red one, he was not the leader. Reborn would have preferred green, but yellow is fine.

The monster of flame swings its massive head around and locks onto Reborn, snarling. Whips of flame burst from the creature's back and crack through the air, flying at Reborn.

The magical girl leaps up just as the flames crash into the tall fence and turn the structure to molten metal. Reborn flips mid-air to dodge the next whip and lands gracefully with a flutter of his skirt. He ducks around another and races forward along the burnt ground towards the monster.

The being seems to flinch back and roars again, even louder, trying to scare Reborn away.

"Oh?" Reborn muses, narrowing his eyes.

Through the fire, there's a darker blob inside the head of the monster. A protective coating? It would make sense, for a monster scared of being hurt. Reborn ducks a fire whip and skids to a stop, making sure the monster can see him clearly.

Reborn pulls out a gun.

The monster stops dead. There's a brief pause as they lock eyes, and then the monster slowly starts backing away.

"Uh-uh," Reborn tsks, keeping his gun aimed at the darker mass inside the fire. "Sit down."

The monster hesitates, trembling a bit, but then lowers itself down onto its belly, looking terrified.

Reborn pulls at the pacifier around his neck and it pops off the chain, transforming into a magical wand about the size of his arm. The monster shakes even harder.

"Love whatever," Reborn deadpans, pointing the weapon at the monster.

It doesn't work so Reborn sighs and shakes it around. He hits it against the ground a few times until glitter comes out and he retakes the classical magical girl stance (with added handgun).

"I said _love_ , or friendship, or fucking _work_ , you dumb thing!" Reborn commands.

A beam of sunlight shoots out and engulfs the fire monster. After a moment, the huge form shrinks down, the fire spluttering out and the sunshine also dissipates in a shower of golden sparkles, surging back into the magical sceptre.

A tiny lion cub is left on the dry, cracked ground. Its fur is a light orange and the small fluffy mane around its head looks to be on fire. It's wearing a little visor as a hat, curled up on the ground, whimpering. The rain, kept away by the heat, now hammers down, quickly soaking the ground back to mud and making the lion cub look like a drowned rat.

The magical staff shrinks and Reborn reattaches the pacifier. He glances around quickly and holsters the gun back to his thigh, tucked under the miniskirt.

Reborn smoothes down his clothes and strides across the burnt oval, wiping rainwater out of his eyes. He stops in front of the monster and crouches down.

The monster just kind of stares up at him, braced for an attack.

"I've never had a dog before," Reborn muses.

* * *

Tsuna thinks it's a dream at first, when he regains consciousness, being scrubbed into a fluffy ball of bubbles by big hands.

Tsuna is looking straight forward, at a ridiculous number of abs for a high schooler. Tsuna looks up, and it's that pretty boy in the class next door. Slicked back hair with cute curly bits framing his sharp jawline.

 _Reborn_ , Tsuna tries to say.

"Mrow," Tsuna says instead.

"Do lions make that sound?" Reborn mocks. He looks at the ball of bubbles on his lap and deems it clean of mud. He picks up the detachable shower head off the ground and turns on the water, washing the soap off until Tsuna looks like a drowned rat again.

Reborn then picks him up by the scruff and tosses him into the bath. Tsuna splashes in and panics, failing around and screeching until Reborn joins him in the tub and Tsuna's finds purchase on the teenager's knees.

Tsuna pants, clutching at Reborn.

"You look much better clean," Reborn muses, relaxing into the bath. He grabs Tsuna around the waist with both hands and lays the lion cub on his chest, hugging it. "I wonder how long monsters can last in this form. Do you degrade if I don't purify you? Do you lose your mind to the point where you can never be purified?"

Tsuna stares up at him with big, teary eyes.

* * *

"So you're keeping it?" Lal asks sceptically. She dumps her backpack on the ground and takes a seat against the tree next to Colonnello, who immediately goes in for a quick kiss.

Reborn is currently showing off his new purse dog, which is just the lion cub shoved into Reborn's backpack. "It's cute."

"Are you allowed to do that?" Fon muses, leaning over to look at the trembling monster. "I thought everyone had to purify the monsters back into humans?"

Reborn scoffs. "What, magical girls have rules now?"

They all pause for a moment, remembering their introduction to the magical girl culture.

"Anyway," Lal hums. "Regardless of rules, the monster is in fact another person, statistically likely to be another teenager. And Reborn, you've just kidnapped them."

"I think it's a boy," Reborn muses, completely ignoring Lal. He rummages around in his bag, shoving the cub aside to grab his lunch out. He opens a banana and pokes the cub in the face with the end until the monster takes a bite.

"That's fucked up," Colonnello states.

* * *

They have pasta for dinner, again.

"Carbonara is different from aglio e olio, you uneducated swine," Reborn tells the lion cub sitting on his foot when it looks at him funny.

This is the third day in a row, Tsuna thinks very hard up at Reborn. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, has all been some kind of pasta.

"Do you dislike it?" Reborn sneers. "Because I can go back to feeding you cat food."

Tsuna looks away.

"That's what I thought," Reborn huffs and uses his foot to slide the monster across the kitchen tiles towards the table because he needs to strain the pasta now.

Tsuna walks the rest of the way over to his chair and climbs the little foot stool before leaping up, onto the precarious stack of cushions.

* * *

Skull is manspreading all over the train seat and the magical girl miniskirt can't contain everything.

Lal reaches over and pushes his knees shut.

Skull slides down the seat and very pointedly spreads his legs even more.

"Are you serious?" Colonnello complains, currently sitting opposite Skull with a full view. "Because you could have waited to transform when we actually got to the monster."

"I like the outfit," Skull argues, kicking out his ankle boots. "I look damn good in it."

"Debatable," Reborn muses, holding onto a standing grip.

A minute goes by and then Fon does a doubletake. " _Skull_."

Skull spits out the purple pacifier that he was sucking on in boredom. "What? Jesus, you guys are so bitchy today."

Reborn is just not looking at Skull so he can retain his sanity. "Where's Mammon and Verde? Are they meeting us there?"

"They're not coming today," Lal says. "Just you four."

"Us five," Colonnello corrects.

Lal purses her lips, making the large curse mark on her face twist, and looks away.

* * *

Tsuna jolts away from his anime marathon when the front door is jerked open. Reborn staggers through, still transformed, splattered in blood and clutching a broken arm.

Tsuna leaps off the couch, accidentally dragging a throw pillow with him, and races up to meet Reborn.

"You should see the other guy," Reborn laughs and pushes himself off the doorframe.

Tsuna scrambles out of the way as Reborn limps forward. The magical girl stumbles and falls and Tsuna _explodes_ outwards. Reborn falls forward into a large, muscular flank. Not as fluffy as the monster's baby self but warm and solid.

Tsuna drags Reborn over to the couch and shrugs the magical girl off before scrambling around to gather the first aide kit and a water bottle and a towel. He knocks a few things over, leaves gouges in the cupboard doors from his claws.

"Stop breaking my house," Reborn sighs. "Bad monster. No."

Tsuna drops everything off on the coffee table and then headbutts Reborn until the other teenager finally sits up and starts bandaging himself.

Reborn takes care of the worst parts and then leans back to brace himself. He grabs the broken arm, closes his eyes and concentrates. The arm starts to glow and Reborn grits his teeth to muffle the cry as it snaps back into place.

Tsuna whimpers and paces around in a circle.

"Shut up," Reborn says, slumping.

Tsuna doesn't know how to transform back into the cub form so he puts his giant head in Reborn's lap to give some comfort. Reborn pets him, tugging at Tsuna's ears, flicking his whiskers to watch the monster twitch.

"Verde lost power today," Reborn murmurs. "He hasn't been purifying monsters for a while now and the pacifier finally turned to stone. He said to not contact him again."

Tsuna peers up at Reborn, not understanding.

"I think Fon's going to go next." Reborn grabs the already blood-covered blanket and wipes his face with a clean corner. "Colonnello's holding on for Lal, still collecting the power, still trying to heal her face. Skull will keep going as long as we do. We're the only ones he has left."

Reborn won't stop until the others are safe. He can't stop, because he's always been the strongest, he's always been the last resort, the plan B, the hail mary.

Reborn plucks at the pacifier around his neck. "This? This is my dying will. This channels my life force into raw power. Purifying monsters is taking their energy, it's stripping other people of their dying will, their hopes and dreams and desires – to feed my own."

Tsuna lifts his head from Reborn's lap. He stares at the pacifier for a long moment and then rises up, bracing his forelegs on the couch. He opens his mouth, flashing sharp teeth, and lurches forward, biting down on the pacifier.

Reborn pets Tsuna's mane as the lion struggles to try and pull the pacifier off. "Taking it off doesn't do anything," he points out.

Tsuna gets the necklace off and tosses it across the room with a swing of his head. He drops back down to the floor and stares, hopeful, wanting Reborn to understand.

Reborn smiles tiredly. "Thanks." He pulls the monster in for a hug. "You saved me. My hero."

* * *

Skull jogs up to their usual lunchtime tree with a panicked look. "Guys! Guys, Mammon joined another magical girl group!"

"What?" Lal straightens up. "Which one?"

"They call themselves the Varia," Skull whines, flopping down onto the grass. "And they have the coolest outfits, and a whole damned _liger_ as their alien mascot, fully grown too."

"Can I join them?" Reborn muses and then looks down. "Roll over. Roll over, kitty!"

Tsuna rolls over and Reborn feeds him a block of chocolate.

Colonnello puffs himself up. "This town isn't big enough for two magical girl groups."

And a Hibari Kyouya, who is not a magical girl but will still hunt down monsters - and yakuza, and magical girls and literally everyone who disturbs the peace.

"Oh, that is a nice outfit," Fon admits, looking to the side where the Varia are currently walking across the playground towards them.

Mammon is in the back, dressed in a cloak as always, but the other Varia have transformed into magical girl outfits. Leather pants, boots, long trench coats with a fur rim, in tan and black stripes.

"Shit," Colonnello mutters quietly. "Actually, yeah, can I join them?"

"What the fuck is that?" Mammon deadpans, pointing at Tsuna when they get close enough. "Because it feels like a monster."

Reborn glances over his shoulder at the Varia and raises an eyebrow. "Sorry, this is an Arcobaleno matter. Mind your own business."

"Petty," Mammon sneers.

"And pretty," Reborn chimes in, fluttering his eyelashes. "And perfectly ready to slap the bitch out of you so _know your fucking place, loser_."

Mammon bristles. "You know, Reborn, the worst part about getting cursed wasn't the dumb outfits or the fighting monsters or even _watching Luce die_ – it was _you_."

Reborn shifts Tsuna off his lap and stands. "Don't say her name."

"You're a fucking psychopath," Mammon snaps out.

Reborn shoots Xanxus in the stomach. The Varia lurch forward, summoning weapons – blades and guns. Reborn pistol-whips Lussuria and knees him in the face before redirecting Squalo's sword into Levi's thigh.

Colonnello picks at his sandwich, silent. Lal fiddles with her phone. Skull keeps his head down, staring at his knees. Fon is looking away, watching the grass ripple under the light breeze.

Tsuna peeks out from behind Reborn's backpack, watching with wide eyes as the Varia fall, one by one.

Reborn grabs Mammon's face in his hands, smearing blood over their skin, pulling them close and looming over them. "I have done _so much_ for you, Mammon."

"What?" Mammon chokes out. "What have you done? Tell me. _Tell me!"_

Reborn stares at them silently, his eyes darker than they should be.

"You killed our mascot," Mammon whispers. "We're losing our strength because of you. We were so weak Luce got killed protecting us because of you."

"This is a curse," Reborn says.

"I fucking know that!" Mammon screams and wrenches themselves away. " _I know that_."

"We're almost free," Reborn murmurs. "Why would you join another group?"

Mammon's breath hitches. "I need this." They bow their head. "I need this power."

* * *

That night, Tsuna stays awake long after Reborn falls asleep.

Tsuna slowly crawls out from underneath Reborn's arm and pads over the quilt to the edge of the bed. He jumps to the bedside table and bites down on the pacifier necklace sitting there before leaping off.

Tsuna walks out through the ajar door and enters the living room. He sits on the carpet, squeezes his eyes shut and he hopes and he prays and he dreams.

The pacifier glows, and sunshine radiates out, engulfing Tsuna. When the lights dims again, Tsuna is sitting on the carpet in human form, dressed in a rumpled school uniform, still ripped in places. He sways, exhausted, but pushes through.

Tsuna spits the pacifier out of his mouth and stands up with it clutched in one hand. He pushes open the door to the bedroom and drops the pacifier back into its place on the bedside table. Tsuna leans over the bed and reaches out a hand to shake Reborn awake but pauses.

What can Tsuna do? When he was a monster he couldn't talk, couldn't tell Reborn that it was going to be okay, that he wasn't alone in this too big, too empty house.

But now, as a human, all Tsuna can do is talk. It doesn't mean anything. Tsuna is weak and stupid, how he supposed to help? The power Tsuna gave to the pacifier should be something, but otherwise Tsuna will just get in the way, be a nuisance.

Tsuna pulls back and stands up. If Reborn needs more power later, Tsuna can turn back into a monster again.

Tsuna nods firmly and leaves.

* * *

Reborn opens his eyes and listens as the front door clicks shut.

* * *

Tsuna uses the spare key under the doormat to unlock the front door of his house. He locks it again behind him, kicks off his shoes. He makes his way upstairs, pauses at the door to his room, and then continues down the hall instead and pushes open his mum's bedroom.

"Mum?" Tsuna whispers, and then tries again a bit louder. "…mum?"

Nana hums and blinks awake sleepily. "Hm? Tsu-kun?"

"Ah," Tsuna says. "I'm home."

"Welcome home," Nana says happily and snuggles further into her pillow, fading back into sleep.

Tsuna stands there, still holding the door handle. "I've been gone for two weeks."

Nana has already fallen asleep.

Tsuna backs out and closes the door. He goes to his bedroom and starts undressing for sleep. He'll probably need to throw the uniform, it's completely ruined. He sits on the bed and digs through his school bag to find his phone and plugs it in to charge.

After a moment, he turns it on and stares at all the texts and chats and missed calls, all of them asking where he's been, if he finally moved schools, if he's too much of a coward, if he's hiding in his room, if he killed himself.

Tsuna turns the phone back off and lies down in bed.

* * *

Reborn slams open the classroom door and storms inside. He shoves Tsuna out of the way and grabs the collar of whatever idiot this is, dragging them across the room and upending them out of the open window.

People are screaming, both inside the classroom and from the first floor downstairs.

Reborn turns and frowns at the boy who he's pinned as his lion cub. "Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

Tsuna stares at Reborn in shock, clothes rumpled, dripping from the orange juice thrown on him. "I – nowhere. Nope. Nowhere. Just about to meet you."

"That's what I thought," Reborn huffs. "Come on, lunch is half over, we're supposed to meet the others at the tree."

Tsuna is dragged out behind Reborn.

**Author's Note:**

> Other story lines within this one:
> 
> 1\. Tsuna learns to shift at will between his human and monster forms.
> 
> 2\. The magical girl group Millefiore attempts to purify monster!Tsuna. Reborn is not happy. Guns come out.
> 
> 3\. Tsuna is mistaken as a mascot and gets picked up by Hayato, who really wants to be a magical girl.
> 
> 4\. Tsuna somehow collects the tenth generation as pseudo magical girls. Reborn pretends to translate for monster!Tsuna and makes the others do dumb shit for his own amusement.
> 
> 5\. Reborn does end up in the Mafia as a hitman, obviously.
> 
> 6\. Reborn will still occasionally wear a miniskirt. Tsuna is not as unhappy about this as he pretends to be.
> 
> 7\. Tsuna later finds out that when the Arcobaleno fought to kill Checker Face, their mascot, they weren't strong enough - Reborn turned into a monster and got a massive power boost to win. Thanks to friendship speeches and hugs, Reborn later regained his consciousness and shifted back without needing to be purified - which is why he wanted to study Tsuna.
> 
> 8\. A part of that monster never left Reborn. (Sometimes the Arcobaleno can see it in his eyes. Sometimes it watches them through Reborn.)


End file.
